Mention Trenton Catholic and Trenton High basketball to someone from the ’60s and they are sure to tell you about Father Clarence against Dr. Price. And the names, Brody, Lee, Hice, Somogyi and Werkman will be mentioned with a tone of awe.

Gary Schnorbus, the former sports editor here, still talks about the 1961 Trenton High/Trenton Catholic game in which Father Clarence slowed the game down against what would be the last THS state championship team.

“Trenton High had a great team,’’ Schnorbus remembered. “Trenton Catholic wasn’t as good as some of their teams. But Father Clarence had them hold the ball, slowed it down and they stayed in the game almost right to the end.’’

That was a different Trenton Catholic, then the one in business these days.
The former Trenton Catholic Boys High closed its doors in 1962, the same year Monsignor McCorristin built St. Anthony’s High School.

So mention Trenton Catholic and Trenton High basketball to those of us from the ’70s, and you’ll get a “you mean St. Anthony’s and Trenton High,’’ and you’ll hear about the 1978 Miracle Mikes, led by John Bucci, Roy Brooks, and point guard Jeff Migliaccio, who stunned the Tornadoes on the way to what turned into a South Jersey Parochial A title for Carmen Nitti’s team.

Jump to the ’80s, and say Trenton Catholic and Trenton High basketball, and the response will be, “Oh, McCorristin and Trenton, yeah I remember one of those games.’’
“Ticket Dave’’ does. It’s how he got started in the “ticket’’ business.

“I was a senior at Trenton High in 1982 and we were playing McCorristin at McCorristin,’’ he said.

“Trenton High back then played everybody, Boys High, Camden, the best teams from North Jersey, playing McCorristin wasn’t that big of a deal — to Trenton.

“They were selling tickets at school, and I bought 20 for like a dollar apiece. Then, I rode over to McCorristin, where they didn’t have any tickets left and sold them for five dollars apiece. A $20 investment turned into $100. I think I went back and got 20 more and did it all over again.’’

And he’s been doing it ever since, making a nice life for himself and seeing every big game and concert that comes near the area.

Oh, by the way, McCorristin upset Trenton that year in that game, but then lost to Billy Clark’s team in overtime, 79-78, in the first-ever Mercer County Tournament championship game later that year at what was then Rider College.

Through the ’90s as then McCorristin head coach John Castaldo hung a couple state championship banners in the Iron Palace, the rivalry with the Tornadoes didn’t die, but new ones with state powers St. Anthony’s (Jersey City) and St. Patrick’s developed.

At the start of this century, and as St. Anthony/McCorristin became Trenton Catholic, the first game that jumps out is the 2008 MCT Final, in which Trenton won by a point, 67-66, in overtime, with two foul shots in the final seconds.

Now, it’s another decade and TCA vs. THS Tuesday night in the Mercer County Tournament semifinals is the area’s game of the year again.

Last year, the two teams split with the Tornadoes winning a regular-season match-up and the Iron Mikes coming back to win in the second round of the MCT.

Tuesday’s game could be special.

On paper, the Iron Mikes should be favored and the early line coming out of Villa Park had TCA by 12, but that was before the Mikes got ripped by St. Benedict’s Saturday afternoon and then by their head coach Fred Falchi in Sunday’s paper.

How TCA responds in a year where a very talented team has gone through the motions more than once will be a key in this one.

Because if you know anything about Trenton High and its head coach Greg Grant, it’s that the Tornadoes will play hard, will play fast and will play to win.

Grant, who knows a little something about local history and made it to the NBA out of a Division III school, doesn’t care about the banners that hang in The Palace or the scholarship offers that the Mikes players have.

He’ll have his team ready to play, and in a few years when you mention Trenton High and Trenton Catholic basketball, they might be talking about the 2014 game as well.